Уолтер Тевис - The Queen's Gambit

In the middle game, things got complex. Beth was unsure what to do and decided to retreat a bishop. She set her index finger on the piece and immediately saw she had better move pawn to queen four. She reached over to the queen pawn.

“Sorry,” Klein said. “Touch move.”

She looked at him.

“You have to move the bishop,” he said.

She could see in his face he was glad to say it. He had probably seen what she could do if she moved the pawn.

She shrugged and tried to act unconcerned, but inside she was feeling something she hadn’t felt before in a chess game. She was frightened. She moved the bishop to bishop four, sat back and folded her hands in her lap. Her stomach was in a knot. She should have moved the pawn.

She looked at Klein’s face as he studied the board. After a moment she saw a little malicious grin. He pushed his queen’s pawn to the fifth square, punched his clock smartly and folded his arms across his chest.

He was going to get one of her bishops. And abruptly her fear was replaced by anger. She leaned over the board and placed her cheeks against her palms, studying intently.

It took her almost ten minutes, but she found it. She moved and sat back.

Klein hardly seemed to notice. He took the bishop as she hoped he would. Beth advanced her queen rook pawn, way over on the other side of the board, and Klein grunted slightly but moved quickly, pushing the queen pawn forward again. Beth brought her knight over, covering the pawn’s next step, and more important, attacking Klein’s rook. He moved the rook. Inside Beth’s stomach something was beginning to uncoil. Her vision seemed extremely sharp, as though she could read the finest print from across the room. She moved the knight, attacking the rook again.

Klein looked at her, annoyed. He studied the board and moved the rook, to the very square Beth had known, two moves ago, that he would move to. She brought her queen out to bishop five, right above Klein’s castled king.

Still looking annoyed and sure of himself, Klein brought a knight over to defend. Beth picked up her queen, her face flushing, and took the pawn in front of the king, sacrificing her queen.

He stared and took the queen. There was nothing else he could do to get out of check.

Beth brought her bishop out for another check. Klein interposed the pawn, as she knew he would. “That’s mate in two,” Beth said quietly.

Klein stared at her, his face furious. “What do you mean?” he said.

Beth’s voice was still quiet. “The rook comes over for the next check and then the knight mates.”

He scowled. “My queen—”

“Your queen’ll be pinned,” she said, “after the king moves.”

He looked back to the board and stared at the position. Then he said, “Shit!” He did not turn over his king or offer to shake Beth’s hand. He got up from the table and walked away, jamming his hands into his pockets.

Beth took her pencil and circled HARMON on her score sheet.

When she left at ten o’clock there were three names on the UNDEFEATED list. HARMON was still at the bottom. BELTIK was still at the top.

In her room that night she could not get to sleep because of the way the games kept playing themselves over and over in her head long after she had stopped enjoying them.

After several hours of this she got out of bed and in her blue pajamas walked over to the dormer windows. She raised a shade and looked out at the newly bare trees by the light of the street lamp, and at the dark houses beyond the trees. The street was silent and empty. There was a sliver of a moon, partly obscured by clouds. The air was chilly.

Beth had learned not to believe in God during her time in Methuen’s chapel, and she never prayed. But now she said, under her breath, Please God let me play Beltik and checkmate him .

In her desk drawer, in the toothbrush holder, were seventeen green pills, and there were more in a little box on her closet shelf. She had thought earlier about taking two of them to help her doze off. But she did not. She went back to bed, exhausted now and her mind blank, and slept soundly.

On Saturday morning she had hoped to be playing someone with a rating over 1800. The man at registration had said there were three who were that high. But on the pairings she was shown playing Black against someone named Townes with a rating of 1724. That was lower than her last game, the evening before. She went to the desk and asked about it.

“That’s the breaks, Harmon,” the man in the white shirt said. “Consider yourself lucky.”

“I want to play the best,” Beth said.

“You have to get a rating before that happens,” the young man said.

“How do I get a rating?”

“You play thirty games in USCF tournaments and then wait four months. That’s how you get a rating.”

“That’s too long.”

The man leaned toward her. “How old are you, Harmon?”

“Thirteen.”

“You’re the youngest person in the room. You can wait for a rating.”

Beth was furious. “I want to play Beltik.”

The other man at the table spoke up. “If you win your next three games, honey. And if Beltik does the same.”

“I’ll win them,” Beth said.

“No, you won’t, Harmon,” the first young man said. “You’ll have to play Sizemore and Goldmann first, and you can’t beat both of them.”

“Sizemore and Goldmann shit,” the other man said. “The guy you’re playing now is underrated. He plays first board for the university team and last month he came in fifth in Las Vegas. Don’t let the rating fool you.”

“What’s in Las Vegas?” Beth asked.

“The U.S. Open.”

Beth went to Board Four. The man seated behind the white pieces was smiling as she came up. It was the tall, handsome one. Beth felt a bit rattled to see him. He looked like some kind of movie star.

“Hi, Harmon,” he said, holding out his hand. “It looks like we’ve been stalking each other.”

She shook his big hand awkwardly and seated herself. There was a pause for a long minute before he said, “Do you want to start my clock?”

“Sorry,” she said. She reached out to start it, almost knocked it over but caught it in time. “Sorry,” she said again, almost inaudibly. She pressed the button and his clock started ticking. She looked down at the board, her cheeks burning.

He played pawn to king four, and she replied with the Sicilian. He continued with book moves and she followed with the Dragon variation. They traded pawns in the center. Gradually she got her composure back, playing these mechanical moves, and she looked across the board at him. He was attentive to the pieces, scowling. But even with a scowl on his face and his hair slightly mussed he was handsome. Something in Beth’s stomach felt strange as she looked at him, with his broad shoulders and clear complexion and his brow wrinkled in concentration.

He surprised her by bringing his queen out. It was a bold move, and she studied it for a while and saw that there wasn’t any weakness to it. She brought out her own queen. He moved a knight to the fifth rank, and Beth moved a knight to the fifth rank. He checked with a bishop, and she defended with a pawn. He retreated the bishop. She was feeling light now, and her fingers with the pieces were nimble. Both players began moving fast but easily. She gave a non-threatening check to his king, and he pulled away delicately and began advancing pawns. She stopped that handily with a pin and then feinted on the queenside with a rook. He was undeceived by the feint and, smiling, removed her pin, and on his next move continued the pawn advances. She retreated, hiding her king in a queenside castle. She felt somehow spacious and amused, yet her face remained serious. They continued their dance.